A mandatory video and log-in credentials. Plus: Michael Sabia's move.
A newsletter about the federal public service. Nominated for a Digital Publishing Award. Brought to you by Kathryn May.
Hi all. The voting countdown began yesterday. Public servants have had nearly a month to mull over the tentative deal the Public Service Alliance of Canada negotiated for them, but the time has come to decide whether to take it or leave it. Public servants have three weeks to cast their yeas or nays online between May 24 and June 16. Michael Sabia, deputy minister of finance, is set to take a new job. Also, it seems public service could be in the throes of an existential crisis. Have neutrality and merit had their day??
Here we go: Deals, deals, deals: Treasury Board is on a roll. $55 billon: What the wage deals might cost. “Storm clouds gathering”: Public services abroad feel the heat. “Narrative warfare”: The damaging daily distractions taking a toll.
SHOES TO FILL Who could replace Michael Sabia?
Reports that Michael Sabia, the deputy minister and top bureaucrat at Finance Canada is poised to become the CEO at Hydro-Québec is firing up speculation about who could fill his shoes.
People have been talking about how long the 69-year-old Sabia, touted as a gamechanger, would stick around almost from the day he was parachuted into the job in late 2020. He’s been in the job for three budgets, has a big influence on Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Prime Minister Trudeau and led the government’s financial gameplan – which Paul Wells writes was left unfinished or never rolled out as planned.
It’s unclear when Sabia will be leaving, but a vacancy at Finance is a big hole that can’t go empty for long, and filling the job from within could trigger a major shuffle of top executives.
Or, as one senior financial official said, they could always “do a Sabia, take two, bringing someone in from outside who is not in the federal public service.” So, who are some of the names within the public service that come up as possible successors?
There are old Finance hands. Chris Forbes, the newly appointed deputy minister at Environment and Climate Change, is a former associate deputy minister at Finance. Nick Leswick is the current associate deputy minister, for whom the top job would be a big jump. Simon Kennedy is an experienced deputy with a couple of the senior posts under his belt and is now at Innovation, Science and Economic Development. Rob Stewart at International Trade spent years of his career at Finance. Then there’s another circle of veteran deputies who don't have Finance experience like Stephen Lucas at Health Canada. Some say it's time for the first woman in the top Finance job. How about Carolyn Wilkins, the first woman to become senior deputy governor at the Bank of Canada? Perhaps Louise Levonian, who retired, but hadbeen touted as an insider for the job when Sabia came?
But who knows how the fallout of Chinese foreign interference will play out with special rapporteur David Johnston calling out security agencies in his report for failing to communicate threats clearly to top political and public service leaders. Is there is a bigger shakeup coming to fix that mess and rebuild the security community? Johnston was critical of how intelligence agencies work and the slow machinery of government.
THE VOTE Here’s the drill: first, the mandatory video
PSAC is sending log-in credentials. Before voting, they must watch a mandatory information video to the very end. Only after watching the video can they vote. There are also a bunch of virtual Q&A sessions – which are totally optional – for any further questions. Tax workers are voting for largely the same deal that Canada Revenue Agency offered them.
Everyone can vote this time. PSAC is throwing the vote open to all members in the bargaining units. Typically, only card-carrying members in good standing can vote to ratify a contract. A strike vote, however, is open to all members whether they formally joined the union or not.
A vote that’s part-ratification, part-strike mandate. PSAC says the previous 60-day strike mandate expired when the union signed a tentative deal and a return-to-work agreement. This poses an interesting legal question over the ratification vote if the majority votes no, and rejects the deal. Do they go back on strike, or do they have to hold a new strike vote?
PSAC is resolving this with two questions on the ballot. One is: I am in favour of the tentative agreement. The other is: I am not in favour of the tentative agreement and authorize continued strike action.
A no-vote, a strike vote. For PSAC, the question is framed to make it clear that a no vote means workers are going back on strike. For those who vote no, the ballot question is implicitly renewing the expired strike vote. Now all this hand-wringing over whether a no-vote means going back on strike could be moot.
If the deal wins majority support, as many expect, it’s all over. The agreement is ratified and goes to cabinet for approval, and raises and retroactive payments start flowing within 180 days of signing.
Another one down. Meanwhile, Treasury Board is on a roll. With the PSAC deal – though still not ratified – it keeps knocking off new tentative deals with other federal unions, each pretty much in line with PSAC’s. The latest include:
The third largest union, Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE). It reached tentative deals for 24,000 economists, statisticians and social scientists (known as ECs) and 850 translators for an increase of 13.14 per cent (compounded) over four years. Talks between CAPE and Treasury Board had hit an impasse and were headed for arbitration when the deal was reached with economists. CAPE is holding its ratification vote at the same time as PSAC’s.
A nearly unanimous vote. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers just wrapped up a ratification vote for the four-year deal it reached with Treasury Board for electronics workers prior to PSAC’s strike. About 97 per cent of those who voted accepted the deal.
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THE TALLY Wage bill is $55 billion and counting
MPs on the government operations and estimates committee asked Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux for an estimate on how much the government’s wage deals with federal unions will cost, including the all-in cost of the average public servant.
Treasury Board is not forthcoming on what those extra group-specific perks and improvements will cost taxpayers. It claims it could jeopardize its bargaining position with other unions.
How much is it? What we know so far is that the four-year contract, if ratified, will add an extra $1.3 billion a year to the wage bill. The $2,500 pensionable lump-sum payment will cost $448.4 million. (The yearly raises are: 1.5 per cent for 2021; 4.75 per cent for 2022; 3.0 per cent for 2023 and 2.25 per cent for 2024.)
The agreement includes $2,500 lump-sum payments that are pensionable, which will affect pension plan costs. Giroux said salaries saved during the strike were more than offset by lump-sum payments.
The PBO figured PSAC’s original 13.5 per-cent-wage demand – over three years – would cost $19.7 billion over the next five years after the contract expired. PSAC’s deals typically set the precedent for all public servants. PSAC ended up with a 12.5 per cent raise over four years – not counting the group-specific improvements.
Is it affordable?
“If they keep growing the public service and pay them more and more, then it becomes difficult to sustain,” said Giroux. But if they shrink the size, as they are alluding to, with their strategic reviews and other exercises, then it becomes more affordable.”
Populists and the public service. The elephant in the room is which government will be negotiating the next collective agreement when PSAC’s latest contract expires in 2024? The spectre of a Conservative government headed by Pierre Poilievre, who has styled himself as right populist leader, à la Trump, makes public servants and unions jittery. Think job cuts and more. Poilievre thinks government is broken, too big, has too many gatekeepers and carries too much debt. Unions are still stinging from the anti- labour legislation the last Conservative government introduced, stripping of them bargaining rights. The Liberals undid that legislation.
FUNDAMENTAL THREATS Is politicization of the public service inevitable?
You want jitters, take a look at “storm clouds gathering” over the U.S. public service with a Republican government in 2024. How about constitutional attacks on the role and power of public sector unions; the merit system and replacing thousands of public servants with “at-will employees” who can be dismissed without cause? To name a few. Have a listen to academic Donald F. Kettl on the many threats to the public service.
Wither impartiality? Then there’s the U.K., the very model for Canada’s bureaucracy, where some are questioning whether the ideal of an impartial public service has had its day. There’s a controversial proposal to politicize the public service – giving ministers more power to appoint allies in public-service jobs. This all blew up when the deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, resigned over bullying allegations. He complained “activist” civil servants did him in and make it impossible for ministers to do their jobs. A public-service accountability and governance review is now. This week, the Institute for Governance held a debate on impartiality.
For years, the relationship between ministers and public servants has been fraying – largely because of the centralization of power in the PMO. Many argue that repair has to come first. The strain is taking its toll and the public service isn’t as effective or trusted as it should be. That’s worrisome at a time when foresight analysts and policymakers are navigating a “perfect storm” of colliding “polycrises.”
The era of “narrative warfare.” Distraction is as much to blame as centralization,
Brian Bohunicky, vice-president of policy at the Public Policy Forum, says. He underscores how the “velocity and volume of the social media hothouse” with the “runaway vitriol, personal attacks, mis- and disinformation, misogyny and conspiracy theories” is damaging the political-bureaucratic relationship. Managing this day-to-day consumes massive time and effort and takes away from governing.
Kathryn May writes about the federal public service for Policy Options magazine. She is the Accenture Fellow on the Future of the Public Service, providing coverage and analysis of the complex issues facing Canada’s federal public service. She has spent 25 years writing about the public service – the country’s largest workforce – and has also covered parliamentary affairs and politics for the Ottawa Citizen, Postmedia Network Inc. and iPolitics. The winner of a National Newspaper Award, she has also researched and written about public service issues for the federal government and research institutes. Twitter @kathryn_may.
The Functionary is published by Policy Options magazine at the Institute for Research on Public Policy
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